


And walk through the Manhattan valleys of the dead

by lanyon



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Post CATWS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 05:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1847011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has amnesia and Steve struggles to come to terms with the fact he may never be the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And walk through the Manhattan valleys of the dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshinelatte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinelatte/gifts).



> +For **sunshinelatte**. This strayed so far from the _50 First Dates_ prompt and from my initial draft from last October that it's virtually unrecognisable. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it!  
>  +Title from the ever-reliable National ( _Anyone's Ghost_ ).  
> + **Warnings** for discussion of medical themes, including amputation and dementia. Warning, too, for an unresolved but hopeful end.

Steve holds his breath. Bucky is stirring, blinking awake and today will be the day. It’s day thirteen and it’s unlucky for some but it will be the day that Bucky opens his eyes and breathes out slowly, _Steve_ , and they will be who they were meant to be. 

Bucky opens his eyes and blinks and blinks and blinks. 

“Who are you?” he asks, shrinking back against the pillows. 

Steve swallows and the usual words come out, thick on his tongue. He does not tell Bucky that he always crawls into Steve’s bed, confident and sweetly affectionate, in spite of Steve’s best efforts to deter him. “I’m - my name is Steve. We’re friends.”

Bucky’s still blinking. He looks suspicious, amidst the confusion. “If I’m in your bed, I’m guessing we’re more’n friends.”

“No,” says Steve ( _yes_ , thinks Steve, grasping uselessly at missed chances and yearning memories. _Maybe_ ). “Here,” he says. He reaches across Bucky, trying not to wince as Bucky flinches back. He hands him a well-folded piece of yellow paper. He’s never read it, even when Bucky’s been sleeping and losing his memories between one dream and the next.  
.

_03/01/2014: Note to self; note to all the selves: your name is James Buchanan Barnes. That hunk of hot blond lovin’ is your boo. This is your handwriting. Look._

_The quick brown dog jumps over the - W A I T - (03/02/2014) The quick brown dog jumps (03/03/2014) The quick brown dog j- (03/04/2014) The quick brown dog - isn’t it the fox? (03/05/2014) The quick brown fox - (03/05/2014) The quick (03/06/2014) The quick (03/07/2014) The quick (03/08/2014) Fuck you (03/09/2014) Whoever I was yesterday was PISSED (03/10/2014) James Buchanan Barnes. Seriously? (03/11/2014) The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (03/12/2014)_

_See. Ground rule number uno, buddy. Whenever you see a note written in this hand-writing (your hand-writing), consider it nothing but the whole truth. (03/01/2014)_

_(Yes, really. He’s your man. He’ll say he isn’t but you are one lucky sonuvabitch.)_ (03/08/2014)

_(He’s not going to kiss you or sleep with you, FYI. He said that today.) (03/10/2014)_

.

Steve watches as Bucky frowns at the note. His expression is different every day and Steve doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe he’s becoming more human and less Soldier or maybe he’s incapable of continuity and he will never be simply himself. Maybe he will always be less than the sum of his parts. 

One of the only constants is the way Bucky fumbles for a pen and writes on the legal pad paper. Some days, he writes longer than other days. Some days, he flings the pen away. There are scores and inky dents on the far wall.

Bucky closes his eyes and sighs heavily. He pinches the bridge of his nose and, in that moment, he’s a snapshot of the irritated young man who so hated the way Steve waded into unwinnable fights. 

Bucky places the pen on the bedside table and folds up the note.

“We’ll have to go in,” says Steve, carefully. “So you can see the doctor. They run tests.”

“Every day?” 

“Every day.” Steve slides out of bed and he’s a bit shaky on his feet but that’s the disappointment and all that coiled-up hope draining away. He gets towels and clothes for Bucky and shows him where the shower is. Every day.

“You could join me,” says Bucky, his smile gone sly and flirtatious. Every day. It’s another rare constant. 

When they get to Medical at Stark Tower, or the Avengers Mansion, or whatever trademark Stark is filing this week, they say the same thing that Steve has heard for the past twelve days since Bucky arrived at his doorstep, clutching a rain-sodden piece of paper with Steve’s address scrawled across it. 

They say that there’s good news and there’s bad news. They say that it will take time; they say that the telepaths have done their best and that there are still some neurons misfiring but they expect that, in time, Sergeant James Barnes will be fully restored.

What’s the bad news? Steve’s fingers curl into the sides of his chair; it’s metal and creaks and is soon bent out of shape.

The bad news is that he still has no idea who he is just now. 

It will take time. 

(Steve knows all this.)

.

Today, he thinks, he’ll go to Central Park with Bucky. It’s been snowing, in the last of winter’s exhale, and there is space and something like quiet. Bucky does well in open spaces. They buy stale pretzels from a cart and walk along in companionable silence. 

“So,” says Bucky. “I’m guessing you’re telling the truth.”

It’s only 11am and Bucky already believes him. This is a good day, though it is not the best possible day. 

“What makes you say that?” asks Steve. He does not hold out much hope that it is because Bucky recognises something in him. 

It is only thirteen days and Steve Rogers is running low on hope.

“My file,” says Bucky. “It’s kinda thick.”

“Buck, please don’t tell me you read your medical notes,” says Steve. This curiosity is new, though, and old, and characteristic of someone this man may have been.

“What? It’s not like anyone’s telling me anything.” Bucky falls silent for a few steps. He licks the salt off his fingertips and then he hooks his fingers through one of Steve’s belt loops. “Not even you.”

“Bucky,” says Steve, as warningly as he can. He frowns, for good measure.

“I found one of your hairs on my sweater,” says Bucky, like Steve is a shedding cat (like the sweater isn’t Steve’s in the first place, hanging loose across Bucky’s shoulders and chest, with worn cuffs, poked through by thumbs).

“I saw my file,” says Bucky, again. “I saw-” He tugs Steve closer. “I saw who my next of kin is.”

“We’re friends,” says Steve, weakly. “We’re friends.” And there is no one who knows Bucky like Steve knows Bucky.

Bucky’s smiling to himself now and he doesn’t untangle his fingers. He leans closer and Steve slings an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. It can do no harm.

“This could all be a set-up,” says Bucky. His tone is musing, almost amused; he sounds like the Winter Soldier did in Kosovo, eight months ago, gently taunting Steve while he held a knife to Sam’s throat. 

“I don’t know how to prove to you it’s not,’” says Steve. He’s had twelve days to figure it out and all they have is Bucky’s letter to himself, with its postscripts and scribbles and folds and creases. He wonders how long the letter will last; he wonders if it will fall to pieces before Bucky stops needing it.

“Tomorrow,” says Bucky. He is resolute. “Tomorrow, I’m going to ask those doctors more questions.”

“I thought you read your file,” says Steve, as though any mention of tomorrow doesn’t fill him with fear. 

“It’s all mumbo-jumbo,” says Bucky. He pauses. “But I look damn good for my age.” His brow is crinkling with confusion. “It was my birthday,” he says. “Three days ago.” 

“Yeah,” says Steve. 

“They keep me in a fridge all that time?” asks Bucky.

Steve sighs.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

.

__Name: James Buchanan Barnes  Alias: Bucky, The Winter Soldier Date of birth: 03.10.1916 Place of birth: Shelbyville, IN 

_98 yo m; total anterograde & retrograde amnesia (day 12) Cybernetic arm (L) NKDA FHx: Nil PMHx: Unknown (See redacted SSR files 12312L, 12312K, 15421A) PSHx: Upper limb amputation (L) (presumed surgical). AC arthroplasty (L), scapular prosthesis (L), clavicular prosthesis (L), sternal prosthesis, thoracic spinal reinforcement. (Revision dates: Unknown, multiple). O/E: T: 99.5F; P: 45; RR: 16; BP: 110/75 HS I & II, no murmurs Normal breath sounds, no crepes/crackles Abd: soft, non-tender Neuro: Normal reflexes Musculoskeletal: 6/5 all muscle groups (!!) Mental state evaluation: See attached template (note: cognition normal, memory severely deficient) CXR: Mild unfolding of the aorta, otherwise normal; prostheses noted. CT brain: No mass lesions; mild hippocampal sclerosis (b/l) (equivocal), ++movement artefact, ?repeat, sedation *MRI contraindicated EEG: ?abnormality in hippocampus (equivocal) (repeat in 1/52)_

_??brain biopsy_

_note : Capt SG Rogers (nok) is medical proxy; likely to refuse invasive tests._

__.

They’re back home in Brooklyn. Steve’s on the couch, sketchpad in hand, open on a blank page. He’s so tired. He hasn’t slept in days and every day is another life for Bucky, and another lie, and, still, Steve can’t drag his gaze away from the way Bucky potters around. This part’s familiar. Bucky picks up books and framed photographs and he drags his fingers along the edge of the furniture until, eventually, he sits down on the couch, curling up easily and facing Steve.

“So, I guess it’s not a set-up,” he says. “Or if it is, it’s one I can get behind.” 

Steve smiles at him and it’s almost unwilling, the way that something happy tugs at the corner of his lips. “Oh, so I’m not the worst roommate?”

Bucky looks him up and down in that way he has always had (that way that is so very Bucky) and Steve shivers (and that is certainly unwilling). 

“Seems like my other days’ selves had a bit of a thing for you,” says Bucky. He shifts and tucks his feet under Steve’s. 

“Oh?” Steve murmurs faintly, thinking he should fix his eyes to his sketchpad but he will only see Bucky there, too. 

“Seems like they think you’ve a bit of a thing for me.”

“We’re friends,” says Steve.

“So you keep saying,” says Bucky and his smile is so bright. “I can live with that.”

Steve hopes he can live with it, too. He’s spoken to Bruce about it, and Pepper, and Jane. 

It’s the opposite of sundowning, Jane says. She had an aunt with Alzheimer’s; by the end of every day, she had forgotten the most basic things, including her children’s names. Bucky gets brighter as the day goes on and he knows that Steve loves him, in spite of Steve’s best efforts to hide it, and Steve hopes, every night, that it’ll be enough. 

It never is.

.

Steve holds his breath. Bucky is stirring, blinking awake and today will be the day. It’s day fourteen.

.

It’s day fifteen.

.

It’s day sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and nineteen. It is _life_ sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and nineteen and Bucky is still sometimes unrecognisable.

. 

On day twenty, Bucky wakes up screaming. Steve cannot think of it as the improvement the doctors say it is.

.

On day twenty-one, Bucky wakes up in Medical, confused and hurting. They have taken his arm away. 

“Who am I?” he asks and Steve gives him the folded piece of paper, tucked into a thigh pocket in his cargo pants.

.

_03/01/2014: Note to self; note to all the selves: your name is James Buchanan Barnes. That hunk of hot blond lovin’ is your boo. This is your handwriting. Look._

_The quick brown dog jumps over the - W A I T - (03/02/2014) The quick brown dog jumps (03/03/2014) The quick brown dog j- (03/04/2014) The quick brown dog - isn’t it the fox? (03/05/2014) The quick brown fox - (03/05/2014) The quick (03/06/2014) The quick (03/07/2014) The quick (03/08/2014) Fuck you (03/09/2014) Whoever I was yesterday was PISSED (03/10/2014) James Buchanan Barnes. Seriously? (03/11/2014) The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (03/12/2014) Seriously this is a thing I do? (03/13/2014) The quick brown (03/14/2014) The quick (03/15/2014) The quick brown well fuck (03/16/2014) James. (03/17/2014) abcdefgh (03/18/2014) зима (03/19/2014)_

_See. Ground rule number uno, buddy. Whenever you see a note written in this hand-writing (your hand-writing), consider it nothing but the whole truth. (03/01/2014)_

_(Yes, really. He’s your man. He’ll say he isn’t but you are one lucky sonuvabitch.)_ (03/08/2014)

_(He’s not going to kiss you or sleep with you, FYI. He said that today.) (03/10/2014)_

_(Read your medical notes: you’re ninety and brain-damaged. You’re welcome) (03/13/2014)_

_(You like vanilla ice cream) (03/16/2014)_

_(Не доверять им) (03/19/2014)_

 

.

“We might be able to get Thor to help,” says Coulson, though he sounds doubtful, as well he might. Odin is no more kindly disposed towards mortals than he was before the Greenwich incident and he is the supposed protector of the nine realms. “If the Tesseract-”

Steve shakes his head. “No, not that.”

“Asgardian healers -”

“-have no reason to help us,” says Steve. 

“They may be our only hope,” says Coulson. 

He’s not a doctor but Steve listens to him anyway; Coulson always seems to know more than anyone and Bucky’s speaking Russian. Natasha says that it’s heavily accented. He sounds like an American. He sounds like he used to, she says.

Bucky spends the day with Natasha. 

It makes sense and Steve knows it. He can’t understand Bucky right now.

“It’s not linguistic dysprosody,” says one of the doctors to Bruce, who nods. “We can’t MRI him but we have every reason to believe that his function is perfectly normal. It’s likely his limbic system is recovering. It may even be regenerating. Some Russian notes were recovered suggesting a primitive stem cell technology was used -”

Steve shifts from foot to foot. This is good, he thinks. Bruce is still nodding, encouragingly.

“Of course, we have no way of knowing how much progress he will make.”

Steve nods. This is good, he hopes.

.

It’s day twenty-four and aliens attack New York. It’s a day ending in ‘y’, after all, and Bucky is still speaking Russian and following Natasha about like a lost puppy.

Steve wishes that he was above jealousy but he is superhuman so that means he is human, and more. 

“He doesn’t remember me,” says Natasha, low enough that Bucky likely will not hear, from where he is standing, wide-eyed, on the Helicarrier deck. It’s a new Helicarrier, of course; designed for peace-keeping and parties, according to Stark.

“He trusts you,” says Steve. He is firm. He tells himself that he is pleased that Bucky has imprinted on one of the good guys. He tells himself that it is exhaustion that makes him feel as though he is missing something; some integral part of himself that beats and pounds and soars. 

“Good game, Cap,” says Stark as he passes by in the Iron Man suit, offering fistbumps to everyone. Bucky flinches and drifts closer to Natasha. 

“It’s strange,” says Natasha. “He speaks Russian the way he always did but he doesn’t seem to remember any English.” She shrugs. “Department X were never able to erase him so completely but maybe HYDRA -.” 

Bucky’s close enough now to tug on Natasha’s sleeve and she presses her palm to his. Steve has never thought of her as being particularly nurturing but she is capable of loyalty. 

“So why does he remember that and nothing else?” Steve asks. He expects no answer. There is no answer. 

“Maybe it’s the least threatening part of his past,” says Natasha. She turns her head and smiles at Bucky and he smiles back, like a flower to his sun. “It is something so wholly _not_ him that it is safe.” 

.

It’s day twenty-five. Steve is sent to D.C. to shake hands and kiss babies and endorse the latest campaign to support army veterans in dire straits. 

Bruce says it’s good for him to have a distraction and that it’s good for him to have distance. Steve can’t think of anything worse.

.

It’s day twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight. He flies from D.C. to Boston to San Francisco.

. 

It’s day twenty-nine. Steve wonders if Bucky will remember to fall in love with him, ever again.

(Oh, he believes it’s love, or it was.)

He wonders if Bucky will wake up in his bed again, or if he wakes up in Natasha’s now. He’s been away for all of five days and he wonders whose bed Bucky has found. He is not proud.

.

It’s day thirty and his phone rings. It’s Maria Hill, asking him to come in. 

_Sergeant Barnes is asking for you._

Sergeant Barnes. 

Steve takes deep breaths and he gets dressed. There’s a much-folded piece of yellow paper on the ground beside the laundry basket. He picks it up and he doesn’t unfold it; these are Bucky’s secrets. He slips into the thigh pocket of his cargo pants. 

He doesn’t hurry. He buys coffee and walks to the subway. 

No one ever recognises him and it’s no small relief. He’ll never be used to women - and men - admiring him openly. He wishes Bucky was here to tease him about it. 

When he reaches the Tower he is cautiously optimistic. Bucky is asking for him. That must mean he remembers him. 

He makes his way to Medical, through ID swipes and retina scans, and there is Bucky, sitting on a trolley, kicking his heels slightly and it makes Steve smile. 

It makes him smile until Bucky turns at the sound of his footfall and his face is blank. There isn’t the smallest flicker of recognition and Steve feels his own face fall. 

“You Captain Rogers?” asks Bucky, rather brusquely. He doesn't seem off-balance, today, despite the empty left-sided shirt sleeve.

Steve nods. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. 

“They tell me I know you,” says Bucky, which doesn’t make Steve any happier. 

“What did they say?” he asks.

“That we’re friends. That we’ve known each other for nearly a hundred years.” Bucky looks faintly puzzled. “They said I saved you.”

“More than once,” says Steve, in a rush, and, oh, how he wishes he could save Bucky now. How he wishes he could take him by the hand and lead him to a place where he is not unhappy; where he does not have that crease of consternation between his eyebrows, even if he speaks only Russian or laughs only with people who are not Steve.

“Oh,” says Bucky. He frowns more and it is the opposite of what Steve wants. “They told me I pulled you out of the water.” 

“They tell me you dropped me in it?” asks Steve, aiming for levity and missing by a few thousand miles, at a conservative estimate. 

“I - no. No,” says Bucky and his eyes are wide. 

“It’s okay,” says Steve, hurriedly. He reaches out to clasp Bucky’s shoulder and then wonders if he is overstepping his bounds. Bucky slumps slightly though and looks up at Steve and Steve is hit with vertigo because it’s not right that Bucky’s looking right at him and still looking so lost. “It’s okay. You saved me, over and over. When we were kids, you pulled me out of every fire.” He pauses. “Uh. Figurative fires. Apart from that one literal one.”

Bucky’s eyebrow quirks and for a second, he is _Bucky_ , that cocky little shit who pulled six year-old Steve up by the collar in the grey schoolyard (grey, apart from the specks of blood and snot on the ground and on Steve’s face). 

“We’ll park that one,” says Bucky. “And maybe start at the beginning?”

“It’s a long time ago, Buck-”

“We don’t have to. I mean, if you’ve got somewhere to be?”

Steve smiles. “You’re gonna learn that I pretty much always gotta be where you are. It’s an affliction.”

“I’ll say,” says Bucky, staring at him. “Where’ve you been these past few days?”

“DC,” says Steve. “And Boston. And San Fran-” He stops, barely daring to hope. “Wait. How do you know I haven’t been here-?”

“Hey, I’m broken, not stupid. I reckon I’d’ve noticed you around here. You’re not exactly inconspicuous, buddy.”

“You - you remember yesterday?” asks Steve, the words all but lost in an incredulous exhale. 

“Like it was yesterday.” Bucky looks around. “Say, are we sure I’m the one who’s lost his marbles?”

“No,” says Steve, shakily. “No, we’re not.”

He sits down next to Bucky, not sure his legs are up to the task of keeping him and his emotions upright. Bucky’s hand rests on Steve’s thigh and Steve takes a deep breath and tells Bucky about a grey schoolyard in 1924 (grey, apart from the specks of blood and snot on the ground and on Steve’s face). 

.

It is day thirty-one and Steve wakes up on a bed in Medical in the Tower. There’s a heavy weight on top of him and someone’s incessantly poking the meat of his shoulder.

“ _Steve_. Wake up. Wake up, Steve. You gotta wake up.”

“Bucky?” Steve forces his eyes open. 

Bucky’s grinning, his face half-hidden against Steve’s chest. “So they tell me. C’mon. We got to 1930 and something tells me we’re not halfways done yet.” 

Steve sits up, bringing Bucky with him. For the first time in over a month (for the first time in longer still), he feels like smiling. He feels like hoping. 

“Not even close,” he says. He squeezes Bucky and doesn’t think what it might mean if Bucky never remembers past yesterday (not even if Bucky speaks only Russian or laughs only with people who are not Steve). “We got a long way to go.”


End file.
